National day participation among immigrants in the Netherlands: the role of familiarity with commemorating and celebrating

ABSTRACT

This study explores to what extent varying levels of host national day participation among immigrants can be explained by previous participatory experiences related to their country of origin, in addition to socio-cultural factors related to the current country of residence. Utilising data from a large online immigrant panel, we concentrate on two prominent national days in the Netherlands: Remembrance Day and Liberation Day. On these days, Dutch society commemorates victims of the Second World War and celebrates freedom, respectively. Our results indicate that Dutch national day participation among immigrants is determined largely by previous familiarity with commemorating and celebrating through participation in holidays specific to immigrants’ country of origin. These findings highlight the need to place more emphasis on the role of previous participatory experiences when examining immigrants’ current patterns of participation in the host society.

KEYWORDS:

• National days
• participation
• immigrants
• country of origin
• The Netherlands

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

The LISS migrant panel data were collected by CentERdata (Tilburg University, the Netherlands) through its MESS (Measurement and Experimentation in the Social Sciences) project, funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

Notes

1. Of the 12.06%, 2.35% Dutch citizens from non-western origin has a Turkish background, 2.25% a Moroccan background, 0.88% is from the former Netherlands Antilles, 2.06% is from Suriname, and 4.52% has another non-western background (not further specified) (Statistics Netherlands 2015).

2. Due to their socio-economic and cultural position, panel members from an Indonesian background – mainly people born in the former Dutch East Indies to (a) native Dutch parent(s) – were considered ‘western’ immigrants. Furthermore, it was assumed that most panel members from a South African background belong to the white, Afrikaans-speaking group.